TEHRAN -- Negotiations to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement will fail unless U.S. President Joe Biden can guarantee that Washington will not again abandon the pact, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said on Wednesday.
“The U.S. President, lacking authority, is not ready to give guarantees. If the current status quo continues, the result of negotiations is clear,” Ali Shamkhani said in a tweet.
Iran is expected to give an exact date this week for the resumption of talks, scheduled for end of November according to Iranian top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani.
In April, Iran and six powers started talks in Vienna to removed sanctions on the Islamic Republic and reinstate the deal, which then-U.S. President Donald Trump ditched three years ago. However, the talks were put on hold since June.
A main issue has been over Iran’s requirement for the United States to give guarantees that it would not renege on the nuclear agreement in the future.
In reaction to Trump’s reimposition of sanctions, Tehran scaled back its commitments by rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.
The U.S. and the Europeans have hinted at other options if the negotiations fail.
On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the use of threats has never worked against Tehran and resulted in Washington’s “catastrophic” defeats in the region and across the world.
He made the remark in a tweet after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Washington would turn to “other options” if diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear program fails.
“Threats have never worked against Iran,” Khatibzadeh wrote. “The supposed U.S. ‘options’ have already been tested in our region. Resulting catastrophic U.S. defeats & the mess left for others to address are evident for all to see.”
Khatibzadeh said the U.S. administration is to blame for the current state of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“As main culprit behind current state of JCPOA, U.S. should embrace lessons,” he said.
After Trump abandoned the deal in 2018, Iran fully honored its obligations for an entire year, after which it decided to ramp up its
nuclear work as a legal “remedial measure” against the U.S. violation of the deal and the abject failure on the part of the other signatories, the E3 in particular, to safeguard its benefits.
Since the beginning of the Vienna talks, Iran has frequently criticized the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden for retaining his predecessor’s so-called maximum pressure policy even though publicly denouncing it as a complete failure which was responsible for the progress of Iran’s nuclear program beyond the JCPOA limits.